Ecualung

Hey all! I'm a grantee for Ecuador for the upcoming year. I made it to the waiting list last year, so I'm very happy that persistence paid off for me this year. I have one question regarding health insurance. The graduate student health insurance at my university will NOT remain in effect while I'm on the Fulbright. The medical form states that the insurance Fulbright provides is intended to be supplementary. My question is, are we ALLOWED to use it as our primary insurance during the grant period? That is, is it bad to send in a medical form with the insurance section blank (indicating that I won't have my own private insurance during the grant period)? Might this deny me "medical clearance"? Thanks-- if anyone knows anything about this, I'd appreciate it.

Favorite Bars: The Midnight, The Bull, The Top. I hear Tall Paul's is really great, but I haven't been there yet Restaurants: Boca Fiesta, Emiliano's, Big Lou's, Chopstix Markets: The downtown farmers' market, I guess. The Publix on Archer near I-75 (next to Old Navy and Target) is probably the best big grocery store, but many are partial to Ward's for good reason Parks/trails: The La Chua trail at the Alachua sink can't be beat, especially if you're into wildlife (read: LOTS of gators). Also, the adjacent Payne's Prairie State Park is great, too.

I contacted my campus reps, and they still say that they haven't heard anything about informing students who were passed along to Mellon. Now, this could simply be because none of the applicants from my university would have been F-H award recipients. What they say is that students who were selected for F-H funding would have been passed along to Mellon "automatically" without any action on their part. But some of the comments above on this thread suggest that the campus coordinators did indeed have to pass along the applications, that is, it wasn't automatic. Anyway. I think the basic conclusion for me, personally, is that since I haven't heard anything about my application in particular, then I probably wasn't passed along to Mellon. My scores were 97 & 92, I think, so I'm close but probably not high enough.

Could one assume by now that if they haven't heard from their Fulbright coordinator about having their application passed on, then they weren't passed on?

No, I actually got my scores a couple weeks back-- around the 20th, also.

My scores were 97/110 and 90/110. The fact that you got that message, while my U's Fulbright coordinators said that they had no idea about whether or not people had been passed along, tends to suggest that nobody from my University was passed on.

Not really, it just copied the press release.

I got an e-mail that was apparently sent to all the students at my university who applied at all, so it doesn't tell me much.

So, theoretically, I will be informed if my application is being sent on for consideration for the Mellon? I won't just theoretically hear "you got the award" without some warning that I'm being considered for it? Obviously, I'd be happy to get the award, but after a month of making plans for the coming school year, getting an assistantship, and signing a lease on an apartment, etc, getting an award would cause a lot of headaches!

Thanks. I'm actually going to make a short research trip this summer, too. I scheduled it assuming that I wouldn't receive any grant, so I could at least make some progress toward my degree this year. There will be a whole other headache if I learn that I received a grant while I'm already abroad-- I would probably have to come back early so I can get my passport, medical forms, etc, in order. However, I'm not going abroad until June 13, so I would think that by then I would have all the information.

Hey all, just joined this forum, mostly to vent about my neuroses. I'm an alternate for the Fulbright IIE and an applicant for the F-H DDRA. The waiting is just KILLING me, and it's made worse by my personal situation. I'm going through a divorce, which means I need to find a new place to live. Nice apartments get snapped up really quickly around here, so I really want to sign a lease on a place (which I'm going to do tomorrow). But there's still the chance that I'll get one of these grants, which means I'll be in a sticky situation vis-a-vis my lease. Perhaps I can find a sublet, or beg to be let out of the lease (which starts August 1st). This wouldn't be an issue if I weren't getting divorced, because I could continue living in the house my wife's parents own. Sorry-- don't mean to through a self-pity party. I'm just one of the countless examples of how this very late notification makes people's lives very difficult to plan. Good luck to all of you!